White House: Decisiveness is overrated

posted at 10:01 am on September 13, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

This explains a lot. Or maybe it doesn’t. According to Jay Carney, decisiveness is old and busted, and the new hotness is vacillation. For now.

President Barack Obama’s Syria strategy may not have been particularly decisive, but that’s not a bad thing, according to the White House.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended his boss Thursday after a blistering few weeks of criticism in Congress and elsewhere over his handling of the Syria crisis.

Carney said the American people “appreciate a president who doesn’t celebrate decisiveness for decisiveness’ sake.” He also said Americans like that Obama is open to “new information” and adjusts his course accordingly.

It’s always good to see an American administration take a tough stand for indecision. However, while this latest spin beats the Pee Wee Herman Defense (“I meant to do that!”), it hardly provides any significant improvement, and ignores the context of the last few weeks.

When an American President demands support for military action in a fresh theater, the underwritten assumption is that all other options have been exhausted. Ordering military strikes puts American lives at risk, no matter what kind of blather John Kerry spews in Congress, especially when we are talking about military strikes on a country with well-established ties to large terrorist networks, as Assad has with Hezbollah. Diplomacy is, after all, the first option that is supposed to be taken, not the last, and Obama had a full year to the day to work out diplomatic solutions to the chemical-weapons issues with Syria and Russia, and to work with Congress on a unified-front policy.

Instead, Obama demanded military strikes first, and insisted that no other options existed. He had his allies, including Hillary Clinton, go out and make the same argument to Capitol Hill and the nation — and then pirouetted back into diplomacy, even while most of them were still arguing that diplomacy had been exhausted. He left his friends twisting in the wind, along with his credibility.

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Agreed, and if one of our embassies is ever under attack by terrorists and there are wounded American soldiers on the roof screaming for help, I only hope that the preznit takes his sweet-ass time before failing to respond.

The White House and this president are very decisive in attacking conservatives, or even moderates and liberals domestically who stray off the approved talking points. What Obama’s indecisive about is situations where there’s no one to give him cover for his actions, and a president can’t have cover on foreign policy because that’s part of his job pay grade as Commander-In-Chief.

Obama’s much more comfortable thinking like your average MSNBC viewer that all our foreign policy woes are George W. Bush’s fault, and that foreign governments or terror groups who hate us do so for the same reasons people like Team Obama hate conservatives. That was the whole mindset behind the Cairo speech, and the longer he’s been in office, the longer Obama’s had to face the fact that’s not true.

So he dithers on action, because he doesn’t want to take the blame if things go wrong, and to take action upsets the entire world view he’d grown up with that the world would become Shangra La if only conservative Republicans weren’t around to muck everything up with their belief the U.S. has some sort of exceptionalism (and even now, as they dither, Team Obama still doesn’t know what to do against Putin, other than to try and demonize him as if he’s a wavering RINO in a Blue state who’s afraid public pressure by the Democrats and the big media will cost him his next election. Obama truly hopes he can counter Putin’s efforts to re-expand Russia’s sphere of influence by sicking gay rights activists, greenies and chemical weapons ban supporters on him).

Agreed, and if one of our embassies is ever under attack by terrorists and there are wounded American soldiers on the roof screaming for help, I only hope that the preznit takes his sweet-ass time before failing to respond.

Bishop on September 13, 2013 at 10:20 AM

Corney said the American people “appreciate a president who doesn’t celebrate decisiveness for decisiveness’ sake.” He also said Americans like that Obama is open to “new information” and adjusts his course accordingly.

The only two things asked of an affirmative action president are: CLEAN & ARTICULATE. Decisiveness is not one of them. :(

poxoma on September 13, 2013 at 10:06 AM

Captain Uhh Uhh Uhh isn’t even articulate because I don’t think being able to read a speech counts as being articulate. All we really got was clean…that’s a mighty low bar to set for President of the United States even for an affirmative action candidate.

Instead, Obama demanded military strikes first, and insisted that no other options existed. He had his allies, including Hillary Clinton, go out and make the same argument to Capitol Hill and the nation

Shrillary was the one to do it. This is certainly an overcharged situation, about to blow, if ever there was one.

Peregruzka!!

Aside: We had no interest in any “options” concerning Syrians killing Syrians other than to encourage them to keep doing it.

Silly question. We know for a fact, because Carney Barker told us so, that the gaffe was intentional to lay a trap for Putin and Assad. It was made to look unintentional so that Obama could fake incompetence and surprise Putin and Assad with his real decisiveness and swagger. Putin may be playing chess, but Obama is playing 3D chess.

Just for clarity, I can’t take credit for this line. It is a comment being repeated excessively over at the WAPO message boards in response to Krauthammer’s article. Libs seem to never have gotten the sarcasm of PeeWee Herman.

Ordering military strikes puts American lives at risk, no matter what kind of blather John Kerry spews in Congress,

Hey! Congress to their credit brought that up. Kerry got indignant and schooled them in the fact that he knows a little bit about combat since (wait for it) he was in Vietnam.

Syria has been the first real test of American leadership in a foreign crisis (largely created by Obama’s big mouth). This administration’s failure has been epic. It is as if the whole foreign policy apparatus is being run by an 8th grade model UN.

Anybody remember Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan? “Judgement To Lead”. Ain’t that working out wonderfully? But seriously, what could we expect knowing his background. I have never had a job in which the employer did not check my references and determine if my work experience matched his job requirements. I also do not think I’ve had a job, other than the Army, where there was not a probationary period. Past performance is a predictor of future performance 99% of the time. Why the heck do we seem to give all politicians a pass in regard to common sense performance predictors?

If his left eye is moving let me know. Cuz if his left eye is moving, then “it’s on”.

/Maybe. I dunno. Not sure. Yes we can. No we can’t. Maybe we could. Nah.

Key West Reader on September 13, 2013 at 10:53 AM

Seeing how miserably bad Kerry is doing his job, makes you wonder just how he would have done as President. The thin-skinned rat created the crisis by talking of red lines. Kerry’s comments about disarmament completely torpedoed the administration.

There was salvage value even then. When Russia jumped in and drove for disarmament through the “Russian plan,” Kerry or the rat could have thanked Russia for their offer but that State Department would be working to develop the “American plan” for disarmament. Instead Kerry goes to Switzerland with Russia calling all the shots. Disgraceful.

The White House and this president are very decisive in attacking conservatives, or even moderates and liberals domestically who stray off the approved talking points. What Obama’s indecisive about is situations where there’s no one to give him cover for his actions, and a president can’t have cover on foreign policy because that’s part of his job pay grade as Commander-In-Chief.

jon1979 on September 13, 2013 at 10:25 AM

Correct. The One decided what he wanted to do before he took the Oath of Office the first time. He was and is determined to end the “American Century” and take us back to the days of primitive empires run on “mystical” grounds. Preferably Eastern mysticism.

Where he has trouble with “decisiveness” is that for five years he has been unable to divine a way of selling his vision of Utopia to anyone other than his hardcore fellow mystics on the left. And every attempted “new massaging” gets him lower poll numbers.

As it stands, all he knows for sure is that he does not dare be honest. Because the American people do not like what he and his cronies visualize as a Perfect World.

Obambi was right when he talked about the job is above his pay grade.Also, you can tell when Carney is lying, his left upper lip rises noticeably. It is quite revealing and this guy would loose his shirt in a poker game with all his tells.

Can anybody in this administration tell us? They’ve been so busy picking winners and losers among feuding factions of essentially the same sort of radical Muslim that American interests really haven’t been a concern to Captain Kickass.

Obambi was right when he talked about the job is above his pay grade. Also, you can tell when Carney is lying, his left upper lip rises noticeably. It is quite revealing and this guy would loose his shirt in a poker game with all his tells.

Can anybody in this administration tell us? They’ve been so busy picking winners and losers among feuding factions of essentially the same sort of radical Muslim that American interests really haven’t been a concern to Captain Kickass.

Happy Nomad on September 13, 2013 at 11:25 AM

Here’s the bottom line.

There is no “hopenchange”. This dunce is a world class failure. A buffoon of sorts. The epitome of leftist academia failure fait acomple’. A coward.

Now, let’s be certain about America’s future here. We are strong. Washington DC is weak.

Can anybody in this administration tell us? They’ve been so busy picking winners and losers among feuding factions of essentially the same sort of radical Muslim that American interests really haven’t been a concern to Captain Kickass.

Happy Nomad on September 13, 2013 at 11:25 AM

To the REB, victory is the Muslim Brotherhood in charge, only he can’t say it.

Carney said the American people “appreciate a president who doesn’t celebrate decisiveness for decisiveness’ sake.” He also said Americans like that Obama is open to “new information” and adjusts his course accordingly.

Carney believes that rampant bullshit can pass for intellectual discourse.